A Shadow of the Mind
by Saurischian
Summary: Just when things have started to settle down, as the family gets used to their new routines, strange things start happening in the Seventh Heaven.
1. The Beginning

Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII or any of the characters therein.

_A Shadow of the Mind_

The Beginning

In any other environment, her natural affinity for early mornings would have provided her some pleasure: the sunshine, being witness to the wakening of the world. But here, as it was, it only made her dread having to rise from her bed in the morning. Whatever sun there was usually was foiled by heavy, dark clouds, smog, pollution and dust. Before she stepped into the shower she would check on the children, then on Cloud. Her mood for the rest of the day was determined in this way. If his bed was empty, it meant he had already gone to do deliveries, which generally pointed to a farther destination than regular, and that he would be gone for most of the day. In these cases she would resign herself to monotony, and spent her time focusing on finding her small, pleasant reprieves elsewhere. On seeing him still asleep, however, she would allow herself one slight smile, safe in her understanding that she would be able to enjoy his company before the restaurant opened at one.

Doing likewise and sleeping in probably would have done her some good, and would have benefited her more than waking up at dawn, but she appreciated the comfort in the peace it afforded her, before the children woke and needed breakfast, and the day became busy. Despite the freedom that came with owning her own business, her days were generally almost nonstop, and by bedtime she was often too tired to delight in much of anything other than sleep.

The coffee machine had made nearly a full pot when she heard tramping from above, the ceiling groaning under heavily weighted footfall. She filled a cup for Cloud first, then one for herself, both of which she brought to the table cluttered with mail and business receipts. Normally she managed to keep the apartment very clean and neatly organized, but it was tax time, meaning a year's worth of earning and spending needed tending to.

They spoke of general things, any of his pre-scheduled deliveries, the meal and soup special of the day, had she one. Their voices were kept low and quiet, and long, easy pauses were common between them. Sometimes he would leave, to start early, others not, working on his bike, puzzling over the most time-efficient routes he could use from drop to drop. Because it was Friday, he would wait for the children before running out to pick up the inventory for the following week. They only went to school four days a week because the city couldn't afford to keep them in for five. Since they had off, the kids would alternate which one would accompany him, a process he watched with much amusement and some pride. His frequent absences made his company slightly more appreciated that his female counterpart, though no less valuable.

On her life she hardly felt fit to complain, had it been in her nature to do so at all. They had struck a soft, comfortable balance.

Truth be told, she detested having to live in Edge, much as she'd hated living in Midgar. It was a cold, haphazard place, no place to raise children, in her opinion, but the building had been cheap, and the area by default well-populated, good for business—good for _her_ kind of business, in particular. That at least thrived in such a melancholy place, if nothing else. But those close to her heart remained close, and she couldn't feel justified in asking for more than that.

The end of this day was much like any other. Tifa had already wiped the bar down, washed the dishes, rinsed the ice box, arranged the bottles on the shelves, and lifted all of the chairs onto the tables so she could mop the floor, which she was in the process of doing. The radio was on, keeping her awake and motivating with a gentle support of soft jazz. Occasionally a deep baritone saxophone would vibrate over the room. She was almost finished, with only the chairs to reposition and the tables to be sponged clean. She swayed to the music, her eyes closed, sensing the aching pull of exhaustion in her limbs.

"You look like you're going to fall over." She grinned, but didn't look up at him.

"Probably true. I'm just finishing up." She moved to sweep by the front entrance, keeping her strokes in time with the beat.

"You know," he ventured, "you should sleep in tomorrow. You wake up too early to go to bed this late."

Tifa repressed a frown. He only ever suggested this when he would be leaving for a distant delivery anywhere farther than Healin. Most times he was only gone roughly twenty-four hours, but due to his stubborn refusal to turn down any delivery regardless of distance, there had been instances in the past where he had been gone for weeks at a stretch, riding endlessly on his motorcycle.

"Where's your delivery tomorrow?" she asked quietly.

"Only Kalm. I should be back tomorrow night. You shouldn't wait up for me though," he added, in afterthought. "I don't know how late I'm going to be."

"I won't," though they both knew she would, taking comfort in that knowledge.

Cloud watched Tifa moving delicately between the tables, swinging her hips, repeating motions she had done countless times before. For a while neither spoke, each entranced by his or her own task. After a bit, when she had finished mopping, she glanced up at him, leaning easily on the countertop, gazing at her.

"What are you staring at me for?"

He shook his head. "Nothing. Where'd you learn to dance like that?" She laughed a little in response.

"I wouldn't call it _dancing_, really. And I didn't learn it anywhere, I just do it." She fixed her eyes on his. "I could show you, if you want. It's really very easy. Nothing to it, really." Immediately his hands came up in protest.

"No. I'm not good at that sort of thing. I have no rhythm."

"Nonsense." She put the broom up against the bar, and swiftly took his hand before he could resist further, pulling him toward her on the floor. With one hand placed on the small of her back, and the other grasping one of her own, they swayed smoothly back and forth. As time slipped past, his original reluctant stiffness melted away, and he returned her grasp, pressing his hand on her back instead of idly holding it there. The distance between them dwindled, until she could feel his heart beating against her cheek, relieved to find it was running almost, if not just as fast as her own.

"See," she whispered. "Easy." As the song continued, she rested her head on his shoulder, her weary eyes shut. He 'hmmed' in response, but said nothing further. After a night of working she smelled like beer and grease, and scented hand soap, yet the hair brushing his face was soft, as was the firmness beneath his hand. Neither wanted to admit their disappointment when the song ended, eventually. Their swaying slowed to a stop, and after a brief pause Tifa pulled away from him. Her cheeks stung hot, and she yawned.

"Oh! Look what time it is! It's almost twelve-thirty." She glanced glumly at the still-unwiped tables. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt not to wipe them just this once. I'm too tired." She stepped away and switched off the radio. She smiled over to him. "Get to bed, Cloud. I'm sure you'll be up early tomorrow." He nodded, but otherwise didn't reply. She shut the lights off, and started up the stairs; in a second, Cloud followed her. She stopped at the door to her bedroom. "Goodnight, Cloud."

"Night, Tifa."

He waited until she closed the door behind her, then made his away to his own bedroom down the hall.

* * *

**A/N:** Hey y'all! This is my first post since finishing Motto, and I regret to say that I have written very little since then. I've only just started again, and I thought I'd post this since you seemed to enjoy Motto so much. Please, don't ask me to give an explaination for anything that happens in this story, since I'm writing it for the sheer sake of writing, and the process of applying to Physician Assistant programs and graduating from college is taking up a lot of my time. But since this story is already half written, do expect more chapters! Here I warn you: this is going to get very disturbing. I've always wanted to try my hand at horror, and since I love putting Cloud and Tifa through misery, here we are. Not even Marlene and Denzel are safe. Rated M for adult themes and language. Please review and tell me what you think!


	2. It Starts

_Chapter 2: It Starts_

Tifa did not sleep in the following morning. Her alarm went off at the regular time, and, while she laid in bed for a few minutes longer than usual, she remembered that Cloud had most likely already left for Kalm, which, instantaneously, reminded her of last night.

She had neglected to wipe the tables and chairs. Moreover, because of Cloud's absence, she would be doing all of the weekly inventory—and the subsequent shopping and restocking—on her own. Not only that, but the kids were home from school today, a most definite assurance that any free time she _did_ manage to find would be devoted entirely to them before they went to bed that night. If anything she should have woken up earlier to compensate. The day, so far as she was concerned, was proving itself to only look long and tiresome. The warmth of the bed beckoned her; she fought to keep her eyes open, and willed herself awake while ignoring the heaviness of her eyelids and the cold wood floor beneath her feet.

The morning past slowly with tedious normality. Though there had been some sun in the very early hours, the sky had since turned dark, a grayness spreading throughout the city like an epidemic. A considerable amount of the liquor had run out in the past week; the trip was short, but really, those glass bottles could get very heavy for just one person.

She hadn't seen much of Marlene or Denzel since lunch. For their part, they'd spent a quiet, hermitic Saturday tucked away in their room, emerging only to be fed and darting away as soon as they'd inhaled what she prepared for them. As she climbed the stairs, the tiny sounds emitted by their arguing voices beckoned her down the hall. Their door was partly ajar, and she poked her head in to come upon them both on the floor amidst a flurry of papers and crayons and colored pencils.

"…wouldn't look like that anyways, there should be a _tower_ on the top," Marlene was saying, her confidence inflexible.

"Hey, anyone want to come with me to the store?" Tifa chimed.

Marlene replied with a solid _no_; Denzel just shook his head. Neither of them even glanced up at her. Clearly they were simply too busy to be bothered.

Tifa sighed. "Alright then. I won't be gone long. Just stay up here till I get back." Both mumbled something like an 'okay', their attention hardly removed for a moment from the task at hand. Tifa left them, hunched on their knees, just as she had found them, amused by their unusual preoccupation and lamenting that she'd have no help in lugging the week's supplies home.

They were so preoccupied, in fact, that neither noticed the afternoon pass until it was nearing seven in the evening. Denzel paused mid-stroke in his current interpretation of a castle he was hoping would be suitable to Marlene's taste, recognizing an empty, forgotten ache in his stomach.

"I'm hungry," he declared. Marlene stopped her own drawing to consider this, and rapidly agreed. Neither had really noticed nor much cared that the sky had grown dark, and that the apartment stood inundated by an odd quiet. Without a moment's hesitation, they dropped their crayons and bounded down the hall and the stairs, only to be greeted by an empty bar. Back up the stairs, they retraced their steps to the small kitchen only used by the four family members, which was just as empty and dim. There was no Tifa, no business, no dinner—no signs of any such activity.

"Tifa!" Marlene called, opening the door to Tifa's bedroom, only now beginning to worry. There were very few places she would be. "Did she not come back yet?"

"She said she wouldn't be gone long. It's been hours."

"Maybe she got distracted."

"Wouldn't she have called?"

"Maybe she came back but forgot something and went out again…" Yet even as she spoke they both knew with a sickening dread that Tifa would have told them had she left again, had she come home at all in the first place. And in any case, the bar should have been open by this time, but everything was left untouched as it had been in the morning. This behavior, this utter lack of regard to responsibility was so unlike Tifa it added a distinctive edge of panic to the already unsettling atmosphere of the gloomy building.

Outside it had started to rain.

Marlene moved over the phone in the kitchen, and, glancing back at the list of emergency numbers taped to the refrigerator, began to dial. She listened.

"She didn't answer."

"Call Cloud," Denzel said.

"What's Cloud going to do?" she retorted. "He's all the way in Kalm on delivery." She had already begun to type in his number on the phone.

"Maybe he could come home early…" Denzel trailed off, too uncomfortable to continue.

"Cloud! Tifa's gone—"

On the other end, Cloud was momentarily stunned by her abruptness. "Whoa—Marlene? What do you mean she's gone? Where did she go?"

"I don't know! She went shopping and she never came back!" On speaking to him, an adult, the girl was coming close to tears.

"When did she leave? How long has she been gone?"

"A couple hours," Marlene replied miserably. "I think she left sometime after lunch. But she _said_ she wouldn't be gone long! The bar's still closed and all the lights are off. She just never came back!"

"Okay Marlene, calm down. Is Denzel with you?"

"Yeah." Her previous panic had subsided into an subdued sniffling.

"Good. Stay upstairs, don't go into the bar. I'm already more than an hour outside of Kalm. I should be back in a few hours, okay? I'll have my phone on if you need to call or if Tifa gets back before I do." He sounded so steady, so unconcerned over the phone. "Don't worry, she probably just got held up in something." Although he didn't say just what. "Alright. Goodbye, Marlene."

"Bye." She waited to hear the _click_ from his end before hanging up herself. "He's on his way home. He said to wait upstairs until he or Tifa gets back," she told Denzel.

"Does he know where she is?"

"No, but he didn't sound too worried."

"I guess he wouldn't be. He never seems to worry about anything," the boy said, with reverence. He was grateful it had been Cloud who had found him at the church; that Tifa had told him to take the boy home after he had passed out.

"He worried about you, about Geostigma," Marlene countered. She understood why Cloud hardly ever smiled, at least not without coercion. His mind constantly seemed to be drawn elsewhere from wherever he was or whatever he was doing, a fact Denzel never appeared to notice. Marlene figured Cloud worried all the time, though she was never entirely sure as to what.

"Well _everyone_ worried about _that_," Denzel said dismissively. "We could have _died_." His friend seemed disinclined to pursue the subject, and after a few wordless moments they both trotted up the stairs to their bedroom, where their game had lost much of its previous allure.

Tifa had not called nor returned by the time Cloud arrived around ten. By then, she had been missing for most of the day, and Cloud understood enough not to make thoughtless excuses for her absence to the children while putting them to bed. They protested this waste of manpower valiantly, eager to help him in the search, but it was too dark, the weather too nasty, and it was simply too late for them to be awake—the hours of constant waiting and worrying had worn them down to exhaustion despite the day spent indoors. He knew, correctly, that they would be asleep within fifteen minutes after he'd left them.

Outside the rain had lessened, improving visibility, if only slightly. Cloud followed the route to the liquor store he knew Tifa would have taken, the one he himself used regularly when he was home to do so, driving slowly and watching on either side of the road for signs of a struggle. The streets themselves were nearly deserted; in areas which lacked street lamps only the neon signs of a few businesses still open at that hour helped illuminate the side-streets and alleys as he hunted. Where there was light, every surface shone, slick with their own stolen luminescence; where there was none, only pitch blackness remained.

He did not have to search very far off the customary path, though it took the most vigilant exploration to finally find her. In the end it was the appearance of her shoe—a solitary, amputated black high-top in a place it shouldn't have been—which alerted him, a detail so unremarkable and minute it explained, partly, why no one had noticed her practically all day. She was in an alley off a narrow dirt street, thrown behind a bunch of garbage bins, generally out of view and partially covered in trash, aside from the sneaker which had been torn off her foot and thrown into the street. She was surrounded by broken glass bottles, some of which had left tiny cuts on her porcelain arms and legs.

Cloud froze on seeing her. For more than half a minute he could not move, paralyzed by an absolute fear which had frozen his limbs and compacted his ribcage. She was posed in an awkward way; one arm was caught underneath her, she lay slightly on one side, and her back was arched stiffly, forcing her chin to tilt upwards and her lips to part slightly. But it was not her position which scared him the most. Her eyes were open. They were open, and she was not moving.

He stepped towards her, abandoning his bike, only to hesitate again. His initial instinct had told him she was dead—her appearance gave every indication towards this conclusion. She was soaked through, from suffering through the downpour for hours, her skin frozen and utterly rigid, firm when he touched her. Yet her eyes were wider than he'd seen in any corpse before. She stared persistently upwards, unblinking, undaunted by the rain pelting her exposed body.

Cloud sucked in a sob. He numbly fingered her neck, not expecting to find a pulse and surprised when he found that, despite the horrific sight she created, her breathing was deep. Her pulse throbbed defiantly against his hand, powerful. Thundering, even. He scrambled to get her off the ground, brushing what debris he could from her hair.

A snarl emerged from the gloom farther back within the alley, then. Thinking it to be a stray dog, Cloud ignored it, lifting Tifa into his arms, a task made more difficult by her stiffness. Her strange posture, especially in her back and neck, remained. Positioning her haphazardly on his lap, he kick-started the bike, effectively drowning out the sound that had since crept closer.

"Cloud…" He glanced down. Tifa was staring up at him, her eyes no less large than they had been, as if begging, terrified.

"It's okay. We're going home now."

They started on their way back, when something in his periphery caught his attention from behind. The animal he saw was not a dog. Though large, it was becoming smaller the farther they drove from it and almost entirely consumed by shadow. It did not seem bothered by their escape; it sat on its haunches and watched them go, its features masked by shadows. All Cloud could make out, in that brief instant, were teeth. Too many teeth, it seemed, to fit into a head so round and small. They glittered like deadly jewels, refracting a red glint from his tail lights as the two raced back to the apartment. Facing forward, Cloud tried to forget them, or in the very least not remember them.

Tifa shut her eyes.

By the time they made it back, she had relaxed almost completely. She was immediately brought upstairs to her bed, her remaining shoes and socks removed, the rest of her wrapped in a towel to keep her from freezing to death while she slept. He noticed, somewhat relieved, that—outwardly—she seemed fine. Her breathing was steady, and she didn't appear to be in any pain, although the color of her skin had not returned; she still retained the complexion of a cadaver.

In his own bed, he was eager to sleep, set in his determination that unconsciousness was the only remedy, convinced that morning would bring more answers than the night had. Yet the images to which he had been witness persisted, chanting and jumping in circles in his mind as if mimicking a satanic ritual, Tifa at the center, arching towards an unseen demon. Her eyes, so unnaturally open, perturbed him, and though he had seen many strange creatures in his young life, none had shaken him quite like the one that had emerged behind them as they fled. And to imagine that no one, not a single person, had noticed her lying there for _hours_, even in the faint daylight... How was it even _possible_? Even as fatigue dragged him down into the depths of unconsciousness, the images, like ghosts, pursued him.

* * *

**A/N: I hoped you guys liked Chapter 2! I received many reviews about how addictive motto was back when it was being written, and I'm hoping that this story will run the same course (though this genre is something new for me, so I'm kind of out of my element). Unfortunately I can't make many promises as to how 'happy' this story is going to be, but I can state truly that no one dies, and the ending won't be depressing or unresolved. Other than that, this _is_ supposed to be a horror fic, so if you want sappy romance and fluff, you should probably stop here. At the moment my inspiration isn't exactly the most cheerful, and who better than to suffer for it than Cloud and Tifa (and Marlene and Denzel)? Please review and tell me what ya'll think!**


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